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Medical education and training
Research
Reporting of conflicts of interest in oral presentations at medical conferences: a delegate-based prospective observational study
  1. Andrew Grey1,
  2. Alison Avenell2,
  3. Nicola Dalbeth1,
  4. Fiona Stewart2,
  5. Mark J Bolland1
  1. 1 Department of Medicine, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
  2. 2 Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, Scotland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Andrew Grey; a.grey{at}auckland.ac.nz

Abstract

Objective To assess the prevalence, location, presentation and consistency of conflict of interest statements in oral presentations at medical conferences

Design Prospective, delegate-based observational study

Sample 201 oral presentations at 5 medical conferences in 2016

Main outcome measures Presence of a conflict of interest statement, its location within the presentation and its duration of display. Concordance between conflict of interest disclosures in oral presentations and written abstracts or meeting speaker information

Results Conflict of interest statements were present in 143/201 (71%) presentations (range for conferences 26%–100%). 118 of the 141 evaluable statements (84%) were reported on a specific slide. Slides containing conflict of interest statements were displayed for a median (IQR) 2 s (1–5), range for conferences 1.25–7.5 s. Duration of display was shorter when the slide contained only the conflict of interest statement, 2 s (1–3.5), than when it contained other information, 8 s (3–17), but was not affected by type of presentation or whether a conflict of interest was disclosed. When a conflict of interest was disclosed, 27/84 (32%) presenters discussed an aspect of it. Discordance between the presence of a conflict of interest disclosure in the oral presentation and written formats occurred for 22% of presentations.

Conclusion In oral presentations at the medical conferences we assessed, conflict of interest statements were often missing, displayed too briefly to be read and understood, or not discussed/explained by the presenter. They were sometimes discordant with statements in the corresponding written formats. Conference delegates’ ability to assess the objectivity and quality of the information in oral presentations may therefore have been diminished.

  • Conflict of interest
  • medical education
  • medical conferences

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017019

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors are academics with a research interest in translation of evidence into clinical practice. AG, AA and MJB conceived and designed the study. AG, AA, ND and FS collected the data. AG performed the statistical analyses. AG wrote the draft manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final submission. AG is the guarantor of the paper.

    • Funding The study was funded by the Health Research Council (HRC) of New Zealand. The Health Services Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen is funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review or approval of the manuscript.

    • Competing interests All authors have completed the ICMJE unified disclosure form and competing interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available upon request from the corresponding author). None of the authors were involved in any aspect of the organisation of the conference(s) they attended. AG is a shareholder in Auckland Bone Density, a company that provides bone mineral density measurements. ND discloses consulting fees, speaker fees or grants from Takeda, Menarini, Teijin, Pfizer, Ardea Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Crealta, Fonterra, Cymabay and Abbvie. FS gave an oral presentation at the conference she attended. Her attendance was funded by the Cochrane Incontinence Group, the largest single funder of which is The National Institute for Health Research. AA and MJB have no financial conflict to interest to declare. AG and MJB have coauthored publications on conflicts of interest in the interpretation and dissemination of clinical research findings. All authors consider that conflicts of interest are potentially important in the interpretation and dissemination of research findings.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Data available upon request for academic researchers.